Let’s start where the last post left off… That was June, I’d been to the U.S. and back — twice in two months — and I needed my zombie time. But we’ll skip forward a bit, as zombie time is boring.
Messy fun vacations, on the other hand, are NOT boring. And we got one.
In July it was back to Amman, Jordan, where I taught a class on evaluation. The thirty students were readying final reports and presentations to clients. We had a crazy week! Ramon happened to be in town at the same time for his own work, which allowed for a wild Indiana-Jones-style escape to Petra.
Petra is a big monument to the dead. There are acres and acres of these monuments, in service of passing folks on to the next world. There are rich people tombs like this one, then the middle class sepulchers which are much more demure, then a group that hang from a cliffside like they were lowered there by the gods, then some Roman ruins including a coliseum, and finally the Monastery (pic below). It’s a miserable hike in this heat but what is truly amazing is that these carvings have survived that heat – for centuries.
Low-brow resting place 
Canyons 
Upon canyons 
Upon canyons 
Upon canyons 
These were welcome 
Because here the sun relented 
And here the camels hung out 
And this is what the heat felt like. In this picture my corporal composition could be summarized as 49% sweat and 49% sunscreen. Maybe 2% headache.
Entering the canyon… 
Climbing… 
Arriving Indy-style 
On our way out 
The camels got out too
I would say it was the hottest day ever, because it was murderous – by the end I was hiding under my chapeau, head down, motoring as fast as my wobbly legs would carry me, from tiny shady outcropping to tiny shady outcropping.
But it was actually hotter the day before, at the Dead Sea:
